Getting the hang of virtual meetings is not easy

DUBAI: My remote working schedule reached an alltime epic moment when I had to attend two meetings at the same time. I never had to deal with this before, not even with my "No meetings before 12pm" rule.

In a worst-case scenario, I would attend a meeting for some time before apologising and heading to the next - both hosts being aware.

There was no bailing out on either meeting this time. I considered logging into one from the laptop with the camera on, and into the other from my phone with the camera off. However, and since each meeting was hosted on a separate virtual meeting platform, I logged into both meetings from the same laptop. This was based on my assumption that I do not need to speak in one of the meetings, and that it is up to me to speak in the other.

Despite the difficulty in listening to two individuals speaking in two different meetings, i.e. different contexts, it went okay until I was asked to speak in one of them. Actually, I was asked if I had anything to add, when I gladly did my usual two thumbs up sign to signal to everyone that all is good from my end. The host insisted this time, though, and I had to speak.

I basically had my camera on in both meetings and my microphone enabled in one only, which meant that the other meeting's attendees are left guessing what I am, supposedly, trying to say. Now, even if they did, it would have made no sense in that setting. I managed, somewhat.

Thinking about it now, there seems to be this tendency to attend more meetings, and to reply to that 11pm or weekend email, while remote working. We are all trying to demonstrate that we are actually working when staying at home, even if this is not really how we can showcase our productivity or prove attendance.

One of my favourite stories, for instance, is that of a manager who has asked all employees to send a good morning message in WhatsApp at start of working day, every day. He clearly failed to account for going back to sleep afterwards.

As remote working extended into Ramadan, things did not change much. Compared to pre-Ramadan, remote working just seemed to shift to later hours during the day. Most recently, a colleague was complaining about individuals not answering his calls in the morning. Two weeks into Ramadan, he realised that he can get the most of his day if he synchronised his timings with those of night owls, managing to get answers to his queries sometime around midday, or later on in the afternoon.

Another Ramadan-related observation, while remote working, is that sudden surge in camera-related technical issues. At first, I did not realise that it has become a recurring theme, especially since it was not the case preRamadan.